Contents

Accelerator keys (mnemonics)

Some strings contain a "~", like "All ~Pages"; these are meant for keyboard
accelerators or mnemonics (i.e., the letters that appear underlined in menus
and that can be used, for example, to invoke File - Open with ALT+F, then O).

You can ignore the "~" in newly translated strings: OpenOffice
will automatically assign an accelerator to commands, except for
a dozen strings that are used in the main menu and that can be found
at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=122640
(if in doubt, ask on the l10n mailing list).

You can leave existing mnemonics in place: it won't harm.

Note that the automatic assignment will only work for the standard Latin
character set (a-z); if your language uses an extended scripts, you will
still need to assign mnemonics manually.

Empty strings

In the strings to translate you may find both empty strings and
strings consisting of just a "-". These strings are no longer used,
but still exist in the source.

Nothing to translate in these cases.

How to find a string in my OpenOffice-Installation

ToDo

<Problem description by example>

<get the application module, link to the section "What File Name and Location Can Tell You" on this page>

<Search identifier in source to get other texts from the same dialog or menu.>

<Verify a candidate by the identifier>

How to find an UI string in Pootle

ToDo

<Problem description by example>
<Using the information from the extended tip>

Using a KeyID

Get the file localize.sdf in folder /trunk/extras/l10n/source/kid/. Download the file and open it in an editor, or open it directly in your browser. The file large, so it takes a while till your browser shows it. To get the file you can use OpenGrok or ViewVC as well, see section Search in the Source_Code.

Use the search feature of your editor or browser respectively to find the row, which contains the keyID.

The fifth column from left contains the identifier of the string, as it is used in source code. Copy it.

Enter this identifier in the search field in Pootle and check location in the search check boxes. Start search.

What File Name and Location Can Tell You

You will see in the following examples, that the filename and location can tell you a lot. Imagine you need to work on the string "line spacing". A search will give you numerous results. Here are some of them, try to find the part in the UI ;)

The file name tells you from which source directory the strings are collected. Sadly the total overview of the directories at Source_code_directories is not updated to AOO4. <A new version for AOO4 is needed.>

cui derives from common user interface and contains parts that are used by several modules.

paragrph.src The file, which contains the string. Most strings from the UI are defined in .src files. Looking into the source you will see, that this file contains the structure of the dialog. The name "paragrph" sounds like "paragraph", a strong indicator, that this "line spacing" belongs to text formatting. *RID_SVXPAGE_STD_PARAGRAPH The string belongs to a dialog page about paragraphs. The letters RID are an acronym for resource identifier.

FL_LINEDISTFL might derive from fixed line and LINEDIST from line distance.

fixedline Now your are sure, it is a fixed line. The string is used to group the dialog page.

Find Show|Hide and More|Less links directly above and below the active translation record. In this light green area, you see strings, which are near to the current one in the source code. They likely belong to the same dialog page.

ParaPropertyPanel.src The string is in the paragraph panel of the Properties deck.

RID_SIDEBAR_PARA_PANEL A resource identifier for the paragraph panel of the sidebar.

TBX_LINESP It belongs to the toolbox line spacing. The property panel has several toolboxes, in most cases drawn in a little bit lighter color with a hairline border. Such toolbox has an internal titel text, but that text is not localized and does not show up on Pootle.

BT_BTX_LINESP There exist no general rule how to design identifiers. The position in the string shows you, that it is a toolbox item. A toolbox item can be a simple button, but may contain more controls including metric fields.

toolboxitem The string is a kind of title for the toolboxitem, but it is only visible as simple tooltip. You need to hover with the mouse over the icon to see the string.